HOOVER, Ala. — It was 10 years ago this summer, a decade removed from the boy learning what life is all about and his place in it.
Seeing things young eyes should never see, feeling pain a boy should never feel. Experiencing a world beyond description.
MORE: Will Fournette go No. 1 in 2017? | HAYES: Freeze takes stand; Mullen doesn't | Listen to Bielema
“Every time I pass by that bridge in New Orleans, I see myself up there,” Leonard Fournette says now. “You can’t just forget something like that.”
Especially if you’re too young to comprehend it.
He was 10 years old when Katrina stormed through the Gulf, when it roared and ripped through New Orleans and exposed the worst of mankind. When life wasn’t real, when reality wasn’t what it was one day earlier.
No matter how good it gets for Fournette now; no matter how big a star he becomes as LSU’s young and supremely-talented tailback, the mental replay never lets him forget about that scared 10-year-old.
Living on an overpass with his family for five days and four nights in downtown New Orleans while everything he knew and held true deteriorated. Five days that felt like five years.
“Dead bodies in the water,” Fournette said. “People fighting, people crying, people praying. I didn’t take a bath for five days. People looting in the city.”
He stops to compose himself. The mental replay is churning.
“Makes you realize there’s nothing more important in the world than family.”
So that’s what has driven him since that fateful August of 2005, since the rain and wind came and the world changed. Now he is the face of LSU football, a manchild tailback who is destined for greatness.
The transition at LSU was rough at first, the idea of sitting and waiting to play wasn’t easy. He eventually rushed for 1,034 yards after getting just 200 in the first four games of the season (on 38 measly carries).
He went from a hokey Heisman Trophy pose after scoring a touchdown against an outmanned FCS opponent, to earning every bit of future Heisman praise in a loss to Notre Dame to end the season.
“He’s quiet and doesn’t speak much,” said LSU coach Les Miles. “Does the work in the classroom, does the work in the weight room, and when we talk about our team goals and the direction of the team, he’s the guy that’s integral to those thoughts.”
That was Fournette on Thursday morning on the final rotation of SEC Media Days, strolling through the hotel in bright red pants and a bright red tie and a smile that lit up the grand ballroom.
“If you’re going to make a statement,” he said, “better make it count.”
The Tigers are ready for #SECMD15 ✈️ pic.twitter.com/e1bBGDHd41
— LSU Football (@LSUfball) July 16, 2015He’s a long way from moving city to city and state to state after the storm, a long way from returning home and eventually playing for the freshman football team at St. Augustine High School, when the coach of an opposing team filed a complaint because there’s no possible way that Fournette kid wasn’t a senior playing down on the freshman team.
Maybe one day he’ll win the Heisman Trophy. Maybe he’ll lead LSU to an SEC Championship, and if all goes perfectly, a national championship.
Maybe one day he’ll buy his mother Lory a big, expensive house in New Orleans. They’ll sit in an oversized living room with the air conditioning blowing ice cubes and not do a damn thing, enjoying the slow, safe pace of life and doing everything they possibly can to ignore that nagging replay in their head.
“Life is so short,” Fournette said. “I won’t ever forget those days on that bridge. But if you don’t make something out of it, you’re the one who loses.”